WRAPUP 2-Syria doomed to "hell" without political deal -envoy

* Moscow blames rebels for prolonging war by refusing talks

* Government forces take district in Homs

* Rebels say talks can be held only if Assad goes

By Alissa de Carbonnel and Yara Bayoumy

MOSCOW/AZAZ, Syria, Dec 29 The international
mediator touting a peace plan for Syria warned on Saturday of
"hell" if the warring sides shun talks, and Moscow accused
enemies of President Bashar al-Assad of blocking negotiations.

U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said in Moscow that
responsible people inside and outside Syria should "help the
Syrians stop their descent into more and more bloodshed, into
more and more chaos and perhaps a failed state".

Efforts to find a negotiated solution to a 21-month-old war
that has killed some 45,000 people have floundered, with the
opposition, buoyed by rebel military advances, demanding that
Assad be excluded from power before any talks can proceed.

In a sign that the war may not quickly be won, government
forces - in retreat for much of the past few months - scored a
victory in the strategically important central city of Homs,
where they pushed rebels from a district after days of fighting.

But in the north, Syria's national airline had to cancel a
flight from Cairo to Aleppo, according to Egyptian airline
officials, due to insecurity at an airport that rebels have
declared as a target and where explosions were heard overnight.

Brahimi spent five days in Damascus this week as part of a
push to promote a months-old peace plan that calls for a
transitional government, without specifying Assad's role.

"If the only alternative is really hell or a political
process, then all of us must work ceaselessly for a political
process," Brahimi said in Moscow. "It is difficult, it is very
complicated, but there is no other choice."

Western and some Arab states that back the revolt are hoping
that Russia, Assad's main international protector and arms
supplier, will drop its support.

"WRONG, COUNTERPRODUCTIVE"

They have been searching for signs that Moscow, an ally of
Syria since Assad's father seized power 42 years ago, is
changing its stance - so far mostly in vain.

After meeting Brahimi, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov firmly repeated Moscow's position that Assad's removal
cannot be a precondition for negotiations, calling the Syrian
opposition's refusal to talk to Damascus a "dead end".

"When the opposition says only Assad's exit will allow it to
begin a dialogue about the future of its own country, we think
this is wrong, we think this is rather counterproductive," he
said. "The costs of this precondition are more and more lives of
Syrian citizens."

Having seized much of northern and eastern Syria over the
last six months, Assad's opponents seem even less likely to
accept talks with the government now than when the Geneva
agreement first flopped in June.

Rebels say they expect to win the war on the ground. But if
both sides intend to fight to the bitter end, the longest and
deadliest war to have emerged from last year's Arab revolts may
have a long time left to run its course.

Despite its setbacks, the government still has the bigger
arsenal and a potent air force. It controls most of the densely
populated southwest of Syria, the Mediterranean coast, most of
the main north-south highway and military bases countrywide.

In Azaz, a rebel-held town in the north, Abu Badri, 38,
surveyed the damage of his home two hours after it was destroyed
in an airstrike. He said four children and an elderly man were
among the dead. Relatives trying to salvage what they could
carried out drinking glasses, a fridge and an oven.

"We'll have to find a tent to stay in near the border with
Turkey. What else can we do?" he said. At least six houses were
destroyed by two bombs on the town, which was just beginning to
recover from earlier bombardment by Assad's forces.

Eleven people were killed according to local activist Abu
Zaid, who saw new graves dug in the cemetery nearby.

Blood was spattered on the bricks that littered the area. A
child's teddy bear lay in the wreckage. A bulldozer cleared the
heavy rubble while young boys dug through the debris with their
hands, hoping to find people still alive.

In the central city of Homs, government forces pushed
insurgents from the Deir Ba'alba district after several days of
fierce fighting, opposition activists said.

Homs controls the strategically vital highway linking
Damascus to the Alawite heartland on the coast. There were
unconfirmed reports dozens of rebel fighters had been killed,
said Rami Abdelrahman, head of the British-based, pro-opposition
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group.

WEST SEEKS RUSSIAN CHANGE OF HEART

The United States and its allies hope a change of heart in
Moscow could prod Assad to yield power, much as Russia's
withdrawal of support for Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic
heralded his downfall a decade ago.

Lavrov noted that Assad has repeatedly said he would not go,
adding that Russia "does not have the ability to change this".

Brahimi's peace plan has stalled on the demand by the
opposition that Assad be excluded from any transitional
government, a precondition also backed by the United States,
European countries and most Arab states.

Egypt's President Mohamed Mursi, repeating the most populous
Arab country's public support for the rebellion, said there was
"no place for the current regime in the future of Syria".

"The revolution of the Syrian people, which we support, will
go forward, God willing, to realise its goals of freedom."

Most Arab states are ruled by Sunni Muslims, who form the
majority in Syria and are the foundation of the revolt against
Assad, a member of the Shi'ite-linked Alawite minority sect.

Brahimi's plan was formally agreed in Geneva in June by
world powers, but Washington and Moscow argued from the outset
over the core question of whether the plan meant Assad must go.

In Damascus, Brahimi advocated a transitional government
"with all the powers of the state", but his wording did not
exclude a role for Assad.

The envoy's credibility with the rebels appears to have
withered. In the rebel-held town of Kafranbel, demonstrators
held up banners ridiculing Brahimi with English obscenities.

"We do not agree at all with Brahimi's initiative. We do not
agree with anything Brahimi says," the rebel chief in Aleppo
province, Colonel Abdel-Jabbar Oqaidi, said on Friday.

Moscow has invited the main opposition leader, Moaz
Alkhatib, to visit for talks, but Alkhatib rejected the
invitation outright on Friday, instead demanding Lavrov
apologise for Russia's support of Assad. He did, however, say he
could meet Russian officials in a third country.

Brahimi said a political solution had to be based on the
Geneva agreement negotiated by his predecessor, Kofi Annan,
shortly before Annan quit in frustration at the divisions among
veto-wielding powers on the U.N. Security Council.

"There may be one or two little adjustments to make here and
there, but it is a reasonable basis for a political process that
will help the Syrian people," Brahimi said of the Geneva plan.

Brahimi is to meet senior U.S. and Russian diplomats
together in the coming weeks. Two such meetings this month
produced no signs of a breakthrough.

WASHINGTON, Dec 9 Aetna Inc's chief
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